Interview with Lucas Falcão

Published    2nd February, 2015

Would you like to tell us something about yourself?

Hi! My name is Lucas and I’m a 3D artist, I’ve been working professionally with 3D for about 6 years now. Mostly doing modeling and texturing tasks, but sometimes shading and lighting too. Besides this professional side, I like to be with friends, ride my bicycle, practice guitar, read and  taste new vegan foods.

Do you paint professionally or as a hobby artist?

The closest I get to painting is to paint textures for 3D models, I do that professionally. I started using Krita recently at the studio where I work for some tasks, and also started using it for my personal projects. I use Krita to put together baked maps that I create in Blender, also for painting textures and improve maps.

What is it that makes you choose digital over traditional painting?

I don’t know, I just started learning digital first. When I was studying at the college, by the way, I graduated in Design. There, at the college, I learned some graphic programs and 3D, so I started to practice in digital, but I also learned traditional art/design theory there. I never tried modeling in clay, sometimes I draw on paper, that’s usually the closest I get to traditional. But I’ve always studied traditional theory.

How did you first find out about open source communities? What is your opinion about them?

It’s was when I started using Blender and I found them really great. It’s an awesome environment to learn, people are always sharing files, techniques with each other. And there is also a lot of tutorials for free and a lot of tutorials for a very affordable price.

Have you worked for any FOSS project or contributed in some way?

I’ve never worked on a FOSS project, but I really like to someday work in one, like an open movie.  I make a monthly donation to Blender Foundation and I’m subscribed in the Blender Cloud, which is one of the ways that the BF is financing the Project Gooseberry. I also made a donation to the Kickstarter to accelerate Krita’s development. 😉

How did you find out about Krita?

I don’t know exactly, but I’m almost pretty sure it was by a video shared by that awesome artist, David Revoy, showing some features of Krita.

What was your first impression?

I was amazed by the features and tools that I see. I found the interface very professional and the software comes with a lot of awesome brushes.

What do you love about Krita?

Krita has a lot of tools that I love to see in image editor/painting software, like for example the wrap around mode, the mirror mode, instanced layers, the transform and warp tools are pretty awesome too. Among other tools.

What do you think needs improvement in Krita? Also, anything that you really hate?

I think Krita is doing great and I really like the direction it’s going, the software it seems to be made for artists, at least I have this impression when I use the tools to work on the creation and painting of textures. I don’t hate anything in Krita, and I don’t use all the tools, but I think usability could always be improved.

In your opinion, what sets Krita apart from the other tools that you use?

I think it’s the very good combination between image editor and painting in one package, and some awesome tools that I haven’t seen before in other software.

Anything else you’d like to share?

Thank you for inviting me for this interview and a big thanks to Krita development team for doing a great work on the software. Keep it up!